Fallible Shadow
by Qu33n0f1c3
Summary: Born of dark magic, the dark one was created to kill the hero of time, but when Link spares his counterpart in the depths of the Water Temple, the dark one must create a new purpose for his existence, to rise from defeat and strike at the hero again, or learn from the mercy he was shown and turn against his evil master.
1. Defeat

Cover art provided by thelovelessalchemist . deviantart art / Link-and-Dark-Link-69418140 (remove all the spaces to view)

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The hero of time, garbed in a shade of sapphire like the zora's sacred stone towered, towered over the creature of darkness. His chest heaved, and the holy sword clutched tight in trembling hands was held over his head, ready to deal a finishing blow. Sanguine teardrops fell from the blade into the murky water that covered the floor, casting faint, pink ripples against the dark one's battered body.

The dark one's breaths were shallow, and his eyes, muddy-red like brick, hid beneath lids that struggled to keep hold of his unnatural existence.

Tense moments passed in this way, until at last the hero moved, lowering his sword from above and even sheathing it away, no longer in need of its ability to cause harm. The loser of the fight was clearly incapacitated.

Kneeling down beside his opponent, the hero extended a hand to the shadow being's ashen face stained by dreariness imparted unto him by his master.

The hero searched the outwardly blank gaze of his foe and was startled to notice something there he had not yet seen in other monsters he had fought. This creature's eyes followed his movement, widened and weakened with pain or alarm; they almost seemed sentient, like this thing was a real hylian.

Standing suddenly, the hero drew away, disturbed by his very own thoughts. If this thing wasn't a monster, and he'd fought it into the ground, would he be responsible for the death of a living, breathing person?

Reaching into his bag, the hero withdrew a vial, which he hastily slipped into the dark one's hand.

"Drink," said the hero, stepping away and averting his gaze, which was soon placed upon a door no longer blocked by iron bars.

The dark one watched the hero disappear into the room before sitting himself up and observing the vial he'd been gifted. It was ruby red in color, brighter than the blood he'd shed. Weakened as he was, and accustomed to obeying orders, he uncapped the vial with trembling fingers and shakily touched the tip of the vial to his lips.

The liquid was sweet and caused his throat to tingle as it slid down to his stomach, which it warmed like a gentle fire, radiating out to each limb, magical energies present in the potion being absorbed into his bloodstream and coursing through his body, gently healing from the inside out the wounds he'd sustained in battle.

As potent as the potion was, the dark one was too weakened physically to keep himself upright, so he let himself lay back in the water, its gentle ebb against his body comforting against the backdrop of fog.

Aside from the shrill bite of the hero's master sword, and his touch just moments ago, the waters and the smooth stone of the prison were the few sensory experiences the dark one had ever experienced. For what little he'd known, he was grateful for these things. It was a better way to die than to return to the blackness he'd been born of.

As his consciousness slipped away, the water was disturbed once more, crashing against his tattered tunic. Moments later two hands touched upon an arm each. It was the hero again. It had to be. There were no other people here. He'd returned. To finish the job, perhaps. The dark one cared not. His muscles loosened, and he fell limp in the hero's arms.


	2. Awakening

When the dark one awoke it was to a world of color and light unlike anything he'd ever seen or imagined. Before opening his eyes his lids were illuminated by an orange glare. Upon opening them the orange shifted to yellow, and the endless gray ceiling he was accustomed to was now painted pale blue and white, colors more pleasant than the dreary shadows of the water temple.

Rolling onto his side, the dark one was greeted by blades of grass, faded, but green, a color he knew, but only because it was etched into his being, the color of the tunic the hero usually wore, the color he was looking out for while waiting inside the temple.

_Inside_ the temple is what he kept thinking, but this hill he laid upon certainly was not _inside_ anything. There were no walls to speak of, unless the brown mountains in the distance counted as such. This place, this outer world, was so much larger, so much more encompassing than what he was used to. The sensory input was overwhelming, and it seemed he was there all alone, which until that point in his short lifetime had not been a problem, but the small world he had occupied, the illusion of eternity he knew well were truly walls beneath the mask of magic, was nothing, nothing like the open abandon he felt out here.

The dark one contorted so he knelt in the grass, then slowly, unsteadily, rose to his feet, where he stood in his boots and got a better look around the area. There was water all around, and a handful of small islands, some connected by bridges, some unable to be traveled to at all, jutting out high above the water level, which seemed low compared to moist soil and sand across the lake by the shore.

The air was damp and held the scents of dew and mud, musky smells rising from the exposed lake-bed below. A solitary tree on the island swayed in the breeze. Nearby the base of the trunk stood a figure who watched the dark one from the shadows. A golden harp was held tight under its arm, and it was dressed most strangely, in tight clothes with a symbol on the front the dark one felt he knew.

"Creature of darkness," spoke the stranger, "mercy has been cast upon you. In this time of evil, the land's hero has spared you the deadly bite of the holy sword he wields. You ought to be honored."

"Honored," the dark one repeated, moving his lips slowly and sounding out the word with a sense of intrigue, for it was the first true word he had ever spoken.

"Your foe has spared the life of a monster made to end his own. You are lucky to be alive, foul being."

The dark one said equally as slowly and deliberately, "I am no monster."

"Time will stand prophet to your claim," the stranger said, shrugging its shoulders visibly. "The Goddesses will see if you run back to your master."

The dark one's eyes glowed red in a flash of anger, and he reached to his back for his sword, but his hands grasped at thin air—the weapon was not there.

The stranger sneered, "The hero was wise to disarm you. It seems the time needed to cast judgment upon you was short indeed. You are a minion through and through. Rest assured if I were in Link's shoes I'd have struck you down when I had the chance. There is no room for sympathy during times of war."

Although the stranger's words struck him, the name it had spoken etched itself into his mind. "Link?" he repeated. The stranger said nothing in reply. The dark one stepped forward, hand outstretched, and demanded once more, "His name is Link?"

But as he took another step forward, the stranger rose an arm of its own, brought it down with a flash, and a moment later, all that remained was a puff of smoke and a choking musk of burning deku nut.

The dark one allowed for his arm to fall to his side. His face wore a grimace as he tried not only to make sense of where the stranger had gone, but also the way the hero's name was resonating within. The familiarity was uncanny. If it weren't for his unnatural knowledge of various objects of this outside world and his ability to understand language he might have thought it disconcerting that he somehow knew the hero's name so personally. He tried not to question such things, as empty as the thoughts had sometimes left him, but this was too much.

Stepping away from the tree, the dark one approached a marble circle embedded into the ground nearby. In the shine of the pedestal he saw his own reflection. It wasn't an image he hadn't seen before, but the way his appearance had looked down there in the murky waters of the temple was never as clear as it was now in the brightness of the sunlight.

His hair, dark gray like charcoal framed his unnaturally red eyes, and his faded brown skin was covered in black clothes, which hid well the stains from the blood he'd shed earlier from the wounds he'd sustained by the master sword. Those wounds had healed over, lines of dark red scabs against slits of exposed skin along his chest.

_He looks just like me_, the dark one thought, _or is it the other way around_?

He wished the stranger with the crest of the sheikah hadn't run away when he'd tried to ask questions. He didn't like the way he was feeling. Emptiness and the sense of being lost were completely new to him, and he wasn't sure what to make of them.

He tore his gaze from the pedestal depicting the triforce and focused upon a building on the far side of the lake. Bridges lead from the island he stood on over to that building. He knew not what awaited inside, but buildings meant people, and if the stranger wasn't going to shed light upon his burning need for knowledge, he would have to search out the answers himself.


	3. Laboratory

The wooden boards along the bridge creaked under the dark one's weight. Few, it seemed, came out this way. The wood, gray and sickly, worn from the salts of the lake and the cursed rain falling from above, was in poor shape for traverse.

Unsteady as it was, it was preferred to the alternative way. Murky waters and muddy hillsides were unappealing to the dark one. He'd been born of darkness and grew up in fluid twilight; he had no desire to know water again so closely any time soon.

His fingers grazed the frayed ropes of the bridge as he slowly made his way across the first. At the second island he took a break, gazing back the way he'd come, hoping for glimpse of the stranger, but he received no such grace, and after regaining his balance, he began the trek against the longer bridge, this one looking slightly more sturdy than the previous, but still in sorry shape.

He was glad to be done with them when he set foot upon the grass nearby the building he'd been heading for.

It was impossible to tell from where he'd started, but there was a small gathering of people standing around beside the building. There were two horses and a wagon, both shadowed by the building which was much larger up closer than it had looked from a distance.

There were people inside, voices for certain, but the dark one avoided them, a questionable flightiness welling up inside of him, very much foreign and unwanted, but impossible to ignore. The sounds, the light of the sun, the open air, the bursts of wind from over the mountains—they were suddenly too much to take in, too overwhelming. The dark one shielded his face with his arm and ran, boots rustling the grass, until he found the door to the building. He touched his hand to the knob and fumbled with it a few moments before he managed to pry it open.

He stumbled inside, panting a bit from self exertion. He was not immediately aware that an elderly man inside had taken notice of him, and seemed curious of is appearance.

When the dark one did take notice, he was startled by what he saw. He might be a creature of shadows, but he was not unnattractive. This man, on the other hand . . . Well, he was no great catch wearing blue and white robes and sporting teeth jutting about at various angles that couldn't be safe for his bite.

"Well now son, don't you look familiar," the man cackled, hobbling nearer to the dark one, who stood frozen. "D'you have a brother? I could swear you look just like a lad who comes in and outta here now and again to bring me supplies . . ."

The dark one swallowed against a dry mouth and shut the door behind him. Was this man referring to the man he was created to kill? To the hero?

"Sonny? You okay there? You look a bit disoriented." The old man turned from the dark one and approached his desk, where he lingered, his gaze shifting to an assortment of potions spread on the surface. Reaching for an empty flask, he dipped it into a green container, then approached the dark one. "Here you are, drink up. It's good for you!"

The dark one eyed the potion warily, the effects of the hero's potion fresh in his mind. It had made him feel warm and sick, but he'd woken up alive . . .

He grabbed the flask from the man's grasp and downed it without pause.

"Come along now, have a seat while it kicks in," the man said, taking hold of the dark one's arm and guiding him over to the desk where he sat him upon a stool.

"Are these things safe?" the dark one slurred, gazing at the old man unsteadily atop the stool. If he wasn't disoriented before he certainly was now. His stomach felt like it was fizzing.

"Oh ho, of course it's safe young man, it's a vitality potion! These bad boys are perfect for a night on the town, heh heh, know what I mean, sonny?"

The dark one licked his lips, clearing away the remaining traces of the potion. The old man's perverse humor went right over his head

The dark one let himself outside and allowed the door to ease shut behind him. He stood on the grass, Dr. Mizuki's card in hand, and the three numbers he'd need to pay for the blood test on the back—500 rupees.

And that was assuming Dr. Mizuki could even get a hold of Link to perform the procedure. The dark one was unsure when, if at all, the hero would even show up.

500 rupees. How in the world was he going to afford _that_?

The doctor had told him to get a job. What was a job? He pondered the word a moment. Working for money, that's what a job was. Well, how was he supposed to get one? Surely they didn't just pop out of thin air?

The dark one began to move, pacing away from the laboratory. He only went a few paces before the horses he'd noticed earlier spoke up, sending out their voices through the crisp air. He turned to look at them and found that a woman had approached them and was scratching at the nape of their necks.

Though he was mesmerized for a moment, the dark one broke from his stupor and inched nearer, his gaze creeping over her shoulder length red hair and the simple dress and boots she wore.

Drawing nearer still, the dark one extended his hand, not for the woman, but for the horse, curious about them, and what it would be like to scratch at their fur like the woman. But as he drew close the sound of his own boots in the grass caught her attention, and she whirled around, gasping audibly, and placing a hand upon her chest, as though in fright.

The dark one jerked away, hand still outstretched, but his own heart in an uproar, and one leg poised back, as though to flee should she strike. After receiving a lashing from the hero, he was in no mood to be attacked again.


End file.
